The Scorpion and the Rose
by razorbladesmate
Summary: The untold tale about the blossoming love between an hopeful Scorpion and a thorny Rose.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: We do not own Harry Potter. All credit goes to J.K Rowling.**

* * *

 **Chapter One**

Rose Granger-Weasley sat on her trunk, fingering the polished prefect badge that was neatly pinned onto her brand new Hogwarts robes with an air of satisfaction about her. Hugo sat next to her. The pair of them were waiting for their cousins, James, Lily and Albus Potter to arrive at Kings Cross to meet them. Rose stood up in an anxious acknowledgement as her complete family suddenly appeared a few feet in front of her, pushing their trolleys in a speed much too slow for her liking.

"Can please we go now? I have a prefect meeting in five minutes and I have to talk to the new Quidditch Captain about possibly proceeding them next year and…" Rose ranted, pushing her family members toward the Hogwarts Express. James, Lily, and Hugo rolled their eyes and started to head for the steam train. Albus had spotted someone and already ran ahead. A scarlet flush crept up her neck as her gaze rested on a certain blonde haired boy that he was now avidly talking to. She dutifully waved to her her parents in the form of a reluctant goodbye and dragged her trunk onto the train, heaving with effort.

"Rose!" Karl Jenkins called, brushing his ragged brown hair aside. A prefect badge shone proudly on his chest. She turned on her heel, exasperation clear on her face. She stared at him, taking in his crude features.

"What do you want, Karl?" she asked, irritated.

"We have the Prefects Meeting, remember? Come on!" he said dryly, grabbing her hand and pulling her along.

"What are you doing?" Rose snapped, pulling her hand away from his pudgy one. Karl blushed, but continued jogging down the train to the Prefect Compartment.

"Nothing… Just, come on," he said, averting his eyes. They made their way to the room, trapped in a awkward silence. The rest of the prefects were absent, minus the head girl. The said girl was a Ravenclaw, and Rose had never seen her before. She had wide brown eyes behind square glasses that didn't fit her face right, curly blonde hair, and a heavily freckled complexion. She was staring out the window with a fierce expression on her face. Her trance didn't break even as Rose cleared her throat noisily to get her attention.

Rose folded her cloak underneath her as she sat down on one of the cushioned seats, grimacing as Karl did the same only a few centimetres away. She inched away from him silently as the other prefects entered the room.

After a long, dull hour of a lot of note taking and even more lecturing, the prefects were dismissed to their compartments with a flourish of the glaring Head Girl's hand. Rose was almost to her compartment when she was chased down by a flushing, out of breath Karl. "Rose! Rosie, wait up," he puffed. She involuntarily flinched at the nickname, but did as he said and stood still.

"What do you want, Karl?" she said, her tone verging on irritation.

"Erm… um so I was wondering… willyougotohogsmeadewithme?" he burst out, breathing heavily. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"What?" she asked skeptically. He mussed up his hair in an attempt to get it out of his eyes.

"Will you maybe... accompany me to Hogsmeade?" he whispered, but Rose was close enough to be able to hear him. Her face had turned a horrible shade of magenta and her mind was screaming to run. She opened her mouth shakily, but didn't utter a word.

"Rose?" he asked worriedly, reaching to place a hand on her shoulder. He was cut off by the sound of approaching footsteps behind them. It just so happened to be Scorpius Malfoy dressed in ordinary muggle clothes, passing by to the trolley witch with a bag of coins in his hand. He halted to a stop when he saw them.

"Rose?" he asked inquiringly, pale eyes darting back and forth between them curiously. Rose was going through all the possibilities of how she could turn this situation around in her head.

Karl, however, interrupted her thoughts. "Malfoy. What are you doing here? Going off with the little pot-head to terrorise some poor, unsuspecting little first years?" he sneered, arrogance twisting his features. Scorpius glared at him defiantly.

"Shut up, Jenkins," he snapped angrily. Scorpius' gaze was directed at anywhere but Rose's face. He finally looked over at Rose.

"Albus needs to talk to you, by the way. He says that Hugo injured himself or something and wants you," he said, a pink blush staining his usually pale face. His eyes seemed to be saying something different. He was staring at her forcefully; like he was trying to tell her something.

"Wait, what?! Is he okay? What did he do?" she exclaimed loudly, overprotective instincts taking over her mind. She stared at the two boys. Both were staring at her with intense humour in their expression.

"Yes, he is. But he wants to talk to you," Scorpius wheeled, continuing to stare at her agonisingly.

"When was this?" Karl spoke up, eyes narrowing as he leant against the wall of the train.

"Like ten minutes ago, but we couldn't find you so…" Scorpius trailed off awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck.

"Okay, where is he?" Rose asked, completely ignoring the boy standing behind her.

"In our compartment," Scorpius responded quickly. "Come on, Rosie." He grasped in the air for her hand, clutching it tightly as he interlocked their fingers. She sent him a flat, harsh glare and tried to snatch it back, to no avail.

"Don't call me that," she snarled. He sent her a quick, sly grin. He tugged her hand, smirking all the while, and took off down the corridor.

"Come on, Rosie. Live a little," he remarked, staring at her sideways as he sprinted. He squeezed her hand.

This time though, she didn't try to pull away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: We do not own Harry Potter. All credit goes to J.K Rowling.**

* * *

 **Chapter Two**

Rose clapped her hands unenthusiastically as a chubby blonde first year was sorted into Slytherin. Scorpius clapped the boy on the shoulder as he sat down to him. The child was shaking in fear. He _had_ been sorted into the 'House of Evil', as the older students liked to call it, and let the older boy mercifully reassure him. Rose tore her eyes away from the duo to the first year student currently being sorted; a prissy-looking, delicate brunette.

Rose's eyes slid close as the girl was sorted, a wave of exhaustion drifting over her. She fluttered her eyelids in a vain attempt to keep them open. She gently drifted off into a deep slumber. The loud, chaotic cheering and yelling quieted down in the back her mind as she slumped back down into her chair.

She was abruptly awoken minutes later as Lily Potter pulled her chair out from underneath her. Rose let out a petrified shriek as she tumbled to her knees.

"What the-? Lily!" she yelped. She quickly quieted her tone down as a few younger students turned back to look at her in alarm. Rose stared up around the Great Hall. It was almost empty, as the majority of the staff and students had gone off to bed. Including the first year students, of whom she was supposed to look out for and take them back to their dormitories.

"Serves you right for sleeping through the feast. And I wouldn't bother sneaking down to the kitchens tonight anyway if you're hungry. Peeves threw a dung bomb in there earlier." The second year raised an eyebrow and flung her shoulder-length auburn hair over her shoulder before stalking off out through the open doors.

Just as the second year said it, Rose felt hunger nestle in her stomach. Groaning, she pulled herself up from the table. She was the only person in the hall, or at least that was what she could see from where she was standing. She made her way out, stumbling over a few chairs as she went from her haste. Soon, she ran the steps to the Gryffindor common room. She shuddered from the cool breeze that had begun to snake into the castle through the windows.

"Rose! Wait up!" she turned boisterously, and glared at the boy in her path.

"What, Malfoy?" she huffed. Scorpius looked awkward and sheepish as he scratched his neck. It had blossomed a humiliating red.

"What are you doing?" he responded, glancing at anything but her. Rose folded her arms.

"I could ask you the same question."

"Owlery. Have to go send a letter." Rose arched an eyebrow; or attempted in her best efforts at the very least.

"Well, don't let me get in the way of your late night happenings. And, for your information, I was going back to the Common room." She said, superiority stinging in her tone. Scorpius furrowed his brows.

"But… aren't you a prefect?" his eyes were locked on the gleaming badge, of which had tilted lopsidedly amongst her short-lived slumber.

"So what if I am?" Rose replied snootily, tone merging on defense.

"At least in Slytherin, the prefects take the first years throughout the common room." Rose failed to respond. "Were you sneaking off to see Jenkins?" he burst out all of a sudden. Her mouth rounded into a perfect 'o' shape before it straightened back into a hard line.

"What's it to you?" she snapped accusingly. Scorpius squirmed from where he was standing, less than half a metre away from her. For some unknown reason, that made her feel nervous and excited. She mentally slapped that part of herself.

"Well, he was talking to you earlier and it kind of looked like-" he cut his rambling off in the middle of the sentence.

"Looked like what, Malfoy?" she said snidely.

"That you were doing stuff!" Scorpius blurted out, flinching away from her in fear. Rose stared at him.

"What?" she asked incredulously, blushing her knotted hair out of her face as she stared at him. Scorpius looked up, the fright slowly drained away from his features.

"... You aren't mad?" he asked in disbelief.

"Well, I don't actually know what you mean, so I can't be mad."

Scorpius whimpered, and realisation clouded her features. "Did you think that we were hooking up?!" she cried out rhetorically.

"I'm sorry! Don't hurt me please I'm begging you!" his face was clearly displayed with nothing but absolute terror. He had all but crumbled to his knees and looked like he was fearful for his life. She sighed and held out a hand for him to grab and to his benefit, he had calmed down a fair bit in the few seconds she had let him relax.

"I'm not going to hurt you, idiot."

"You... aren't?"

"For Merlin's sake Malfoy, just calm down. Go send that stupid letter of yours. I don't care. He took her hand and stood up.

"Okay..."

"What are you waiting for?" he was standing rigidly still, and she was becoming extremely exasperated as the time went on.

"For you to slap me," Scorpius said, a wavering trace of fear in his voice.

"You know what? I will slap you if you don't get out of my way." With that, she pushed past him roughly.

He didn't speak a word as she jogged up the stone path to her common room. With a long-lived sigh, he watched her retreating figure, before spinning on his heel and going back in the direction he came in.

Nobody he passed put in any effort to spark up a conversation with him and he took it with a brush of the shoulder.

He murmured the password to the painting and he had soon resigned to the familiar bed in the dungeons under the school that had been his since that fateful first day, when he had first met Rose Granger-Weasley.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: We do not own Harry Potter. All credit goes to J.K Rowling**

* * *

 **Chapter Three**

Rose sighed. Today was the first day of classes; the single thing each and every pupil had been dreading since the holidays had even started. Rose wasn't overly reluctant about it, but she had definitely grown out of her habit of reading her textbooks multiple times to memorize all the spells and ask the professors to let her sit the exams as soon as possible.

She was currently seated in at the Gryffindor table, eyes scanning her timetable as she shoveled cereal as quickly as she could. She had Herbology with the Hufflepuffs first. Professor Longbottom might have been a kind man outside of Hogwarts, but he could be very strict and took his job very seriously.

She looked longingly back to the days with her time turner before it had been confiscated by Professor McGonagall at the end of the previous year for no reason at all. She hadn't been using it for anything but schoolwork before the Headmistress shot her a strange look and asked to see it. And lo and behold, Rose hadn't seen it since.

Pushing all thoughts of the contraption beside, she stood up and hurried to the greenhouses. She was the lone Gryffindor in the midst of numerous overly cheery Hufflepuffs who of which were not doing anything to improve Rose's quickly dropping mood. She nodded in greeting to the Professor and shuffled away from the ever-growing pack of students.

At last, her fellow Gryffindors joined her, roommates running up to her and talking under their breaths as Longbottom began. Rose struggled to keep back a laugh as they accused her of not waking them up.

"It's not my fault that you didn't take the responsibility to get an alarm clock this year. Instead, you depended on me, Polly. And given the hours that you spend in the bathrooms, serves you right for not bothering to pay a galleon."

The girl glared at Rose, turned on her heel and stomped away. Rose rolled her eyes.

Herbology went by in a blur, as did all the classes. In potions, someone used the wrong ingredient and walked out covered in boils, and in charms, someone pronounced the spell wrong and enlarged their features until they were unrecognizable.

Finally, it was the last class of the day; Care of Magical Creatures.

They had this class with the Slytherins, something that Rose didn't quite know how to feel about.

"Class! Today we're working with dragons!" Professor Woodbead announced.

"What!?" Rose exclaimed.

"Is there a problem, Miss Granger-Weasley?" the aging teacher asked sternly.

"We aren't… when would we come in contact with dragons!? I see no reason to take care of one and potentially injure or kill ourselves." Rose replied firmly. A few classmates yelled at her to stand down. She blatantly ignored them.

"Does McGonagall know that you're letting a bunch of incompetent fifteen-year-olds play about with fire-breathing mutts?" Rose snarled. She blushed all of a sudden when she spotted a familiar blonde head staring at her thoughtfully.

"Miss Granger-Weasley, be quiet and sit down, NOW!" Professor Woodbead yelled. Rose huffed and slumped down into her seat.

"Now, where were we?"

They proceeded with their lesson grudgingly, after a long lecture of how to take care of the creatures.

"Miss Granger-Weasley, please come see me after class is over," Professor Woodbead finished, before leading the group over to numerous piles of cages in a clearing. They were all coated in scorched blanket-like covers.

"Okay… back away quietly and slowly." The class stayed as they were. The teacher raised her wand, not taking her gaze away from the pile, and muttered an incantation of a spell under her breath.

The covers flew off at once, in a startlingly fast pace. Several small, scaled creatures stared back at the group, their large fangs dripping with saliva. Rose swallowed. No one knew, but she harbored a secret fear of the majestic creatures, even though her Uncle Charlie was a dragon-handler himself. Suddenly, one dragon a little way off from the rest let out a thundering roar, blasting flames all over the grassy clearing.

One girl screamed, the sound echoing about the place in an eerie manner. "You will each be hosting a dragon for this lesson in pairs that I have pre-selected for you." At this, there were numerous groans, "I have explained the measures of how to care for these creatures. Now, listen up for your name."

She started reading through a list of the class out loud, pairing them off in roll order. "Fredricks! Granger-Weasley!" Rose reluctantly moved to stand with the acne-ridden young Gryffindor.

The class began working and trying to handle the beasts, with limited progress.

Rose, for once in her life, let her partner do the majority of the work. She stood meters behind Yann, of whom was considerably less terrified than she. She barely refrained from screeching and running until her life depended on it as the small dragon they had been assigned stuck it's head through the bars of the cage and scorched the ground black with a single puff of breath.

"Okay, we have to let her out of the cage now," Yann remarked, swallowing anxiously, glancing at her over his shoulder.

"And we're doing this because…?" Rose snapped, hysteria overcoming her usual calm demeanor.

Yann rolled his eyes, as if it were obvious. "We have to let it roam around. According to my studies, young dragons usually refrain from-" Rose neglected to listen to the rest of the lecture, instead backing away until she hit a tree.

"Granger-Weasley? For merlin's sake, stop being such a pathetic little wimp. Come over here." Yann stormed over to her and gripped her wrist, dragging her to her original space.

Without acknowledging his partner for a second, Yann waved his wand and muttered a simple unlocking charm under his breath.

"What the heck are you-" Rose was cut off as the majestic animal rose to the air. However, it was not the mere beauty of the creature that made her halt.

The dragon was hurtling at her in a burst of sudden speed and strength, fangs bared as the wisps of fire escaped her mouth. Rose knew the look in the dragon's eyes far too well.

The desire to kill.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: We do not own Harry Potter. All credit goes to J.K Rowling.**

* * *

 ** **Chapter Four****

Rose barely had time to think as the shadow moved forward. All she knew was that the evil little beast of a dragon was hurtling toward her at a speed so fast all she could see was a blur. She flinched back as a near invisible force knocked her onto the grassy forest floor. Trembling, she backed away as fast as she could on her hands. Someone was screaming. Oh wait, that was her own voice, sending the dull shriek that pierced through the clearing.

Her body was paralyzed in fear, and all eyes were on her. The teacher had gone back to get something for a student, so it was just the class of delinquent fifth years and storm of dragons shaking with misplaced fury.

Rose's eyes, the only thing on her body that she actually seemed to be able to move at that moment in time, darted back and forth. Her classmates were being as about as helpful as she would have been, if it were not her in this position. They were standing around her in a circle, jaws dropped to their feet.

The delicately fearsome creature descended on her in almost slow motion, an evil look in its eye. Rose let her eyelids flutter to a close, breathing in what would be her final breath.

She felt the dragon's claw cascade down on her like a whisper, and the impact kissed her head to the ground. She willed Yann or Polly or Albus or _anyone_ to help her, but couldn't blame them for not. Agonizing pain blossomed in her cheek as a sticky liquid dripped down her face, painting it and the grass a brilliant shade of red. Until the creature was no longer there. She caught a glimpse of silvery blond hair for half a second, before it disappeared. The dragon had been knocked aside by some sort of unseeable, unknown force. Rose blinked. She was losing too much blood. She felt faint and her breathing was becoming to be too heavy. She tried to crawl to her knees, but a gravitating wave of shock and dizziness compelled her to stay down. She collapsed.

The last thing she saw before dropping unconscious were a pair of anxious stormy grey eyes.

The usually blank, black screen of her eyelids were engulfed with a blinding white light. Grasping for something to help her sit up, she hit a wall. Only, it wasn't a wall. It was an arm, warmer than she would have thought. The hand that had grasped hers in a desperate hold was calloused and rough. The weird part was, it sent small light shockwaves up her arm. Blinking hard through the thick, alluring exterior of sleep, she forced her eyes to stay open.

She was in the hospital wing. That was the first thing she noticed as she took in her surroundings. The second was that the person holding her was none other than Scorpius Malfoy, her sworn enemy.

She let out a yelp of surprise, spluttering as she shook her hand from his.

"What the bloody hell do think you're doing, Malfoy!?" She yelled at him, shrinking back on the uncomfortably stiff mattress.

Scorpius' cheeks stained scarlet.

"What?" he protested innocently, causing her to pause for a fraction of a second.

"What do you think you're doing, holding my hand like that while I'm unconscious in a bed?" she snarled. He had no answer for her.

"Now, tell me, what happened with the dragon thing?" Rose blurted out suspiciously.

Scorpius sighed and brushed a strand of platinum blond hair out of his face.

"Well, the dragon that you and Fredricks were looking after like, escaped or got out of the cage somehow. I don't know why exactly, because you weren't supposed to-", he was cut off like a deer in headlights from his rambling by an impatient, quizzical Rose.

"Get to the point already, Malfoy," she snapped. Scorpius flushed a deeper shade of red.

"Well, I jumped in front of you and stunned the thing; what any idiot would do anyway," he paused but you'd already been hurt…."

Rose frowned, a confused expression alighting her face.

"Hurt?" she questioned.

He nodded to her cheek. She lifted a hand to touch it and felt an area that was raised slightly with the familiar pattern of stitches.

"You jumped in and saved me?'" she asked, tone rising to a worryingly high pitch.

Scorpius furrowed his brows, oblivious to her building anger.

"Yes. Why?" he asked dubiously. "What's wrong? Wait… are you on a certain time of month?" he inched back inconspicuously from her as her eyes narrowed to slits.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she didn't let him say a word.

In a heartbeat, her hand had struck his face, leaving a trail of red in its wake.

"What was that for!?" he exclaimed loudly, after jumping up in alarm. He raised a hand, feeling the burning sensation set in, eyes wide with shock and pain.

She slid out of the bed and stormed out of the room with a dramatic air about her, all too knowing of his eyes on her retreating figure.

Rose strode into the great hall minutes later, flanked by her reluctant roommates, for the dinner that her stomach had been aching for since she woke up. She stumbled as she sat down, knocking a glass over on the table. She glared at those who stared at her, flippantly filling her plate with food from the Gryffindor table. She avoided looking at the Slytherin table, where she was well aware of her jeering classmates, but more importantly, Scorpius and Albus, both who of which were staring straight at her.

Their chatter was loud and rowdy, and Rose could hear it all the way from across the room where she was sitting, much to her displeasure.

She turned her head and glanced away, cheeks flaring red.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: We don't own Harry Potter. All credit goes to J.K Rowling.**

* * *

 **Chapter Five**

There was an odd tension in the hall at breakfast, a few days after the incident with the dragon. Rose was seated in her usual place, shovelling scrambled eggs and bacon into her mouth as fast as she could. She had a test in Charms class first up, and she would not let herself be late for it.

She dusted her hands against her knees after standing up, and squeezed through the throb of people that were entering the hall. She flinched as she was slammed against the grand doors of the hall by a meaty looking Slytherin.

"W-what are you doing?!" Rose stammered, fighting to break free of the boy's strickenned grasp. The attempt was futile. His arms wound a tight binding of muscle and fat, keeping her stuck in place. The Slytherin boy ignored her, one hand pressing her shoulder against the wall, the other on her hip.

"G-Get off of me!", she yelled, keeping her stutter as he dragged her along the wall, until they reached a broom closet. He opened it with a harsh speed of rashness, before stumbling inside, the length of his arm continuously hitting her neck.

"What- ugh just _get-_ ", she was cut off by the harsh beating of his sweaty, brutish hand slamming over her mouth. Rose's mind spiralled out of control, her constant calculating of how to get out of the mess she was in. Should she lick his hand? That's what her mother had always told her to do in a situation similar to one she was currently. But just thinking of doing so made nausea burst in her stomach. Should she bite it? That was worse.

Instead, she brought her knee to her hip when she hoped he wasn't looking, and jutted it out so that the sharpest point of her kneecap was pointing to the place on his body where the sun didn't shine.

Until then, she had been struggling against the door of the closet to not be brought inside the pit of whatever was going to happen next. The boy regained strength and shoved her inside, letting her tumble onto the cold stone floor as he slammed the door shut. Rose scrambled to her feet, only to be pushed back down by an unknown force behind her.

The broom closet was indulging in darkness. Rose blinked quickly, head darting in every direction it could for some source of light. She wiped her lips with the sleeve of her robes, relieving her face of sweat.

"I'm warning you. Twenty points from Slytherin, or whatever houses that you're in!" she yelped, her voice betraying her by stuttering and fracturing her tone. A low laugh echoed through the dark closet.

"Annoying Gryffindor Prefect," a voice growled from about a foot away from her, making her jump in fright.

"Why couldn't we find someone more cooperative?" it asked dubiously.

Rose gulped.

"What do you want?"

"I thought she was supposed to be smart."

Yet another raspy voice enlightened the room, this one coming from the near end of the cramped closet.

"Just let me go!" she said, body shaking with fear.

They paid her no response. She felt something nudge the small of her back. Without taking a second to think over her actions, she let her knee sink into the flesh of the nearest person. A loud, exaggerated groan filled the closet. " _Shit_ ," a voice crowed, the person keeling onto the cold, archaic stone wall.

Rose took this opportunity to jump to her feet and make a dash for the door. Something grasped her torso from behind. She reluctantly allowed herself to turn 180 degrees, until she was staring right into her captor's face. The effect was ruined by the fact that she couldn't actually see her attacker, because of the darkness the lit the dingy, rustic closet.

But what she could feel was the near-luminous glow of his eyes boring into hers. And she could sense his hand raising for split, terrifying second before it smacked cleanly against her cheek.

Scorpius flung his school bag over his left shoulder as he ran out of the great hall, a piece of blackened, unbuttered toast resting between his teeth. His aim was for the retreating figure further along the corridor.

"Hurry up! What's taking you so long, Scorpius?!" Albus' irritated call sounded, echoing about the hallway. Scorpius stopped in his tracks, pausing where he was to scrape a strand of platinum hair from his forehead, flinching as he felt the bottom of his bag darken with moisture.

"I'm coming! Just… Go to class. I'll catch up later, my bag broke or something," he called back out distractedly, long, thin fingers fiddling with the hem of his shirt as he crouched down to his knees to inspect his bag. An ink bottle had exploded, sending vibrant blue dye to soil his textbooks and parchment. He cursed under his breath, snatching up his wand from the back pocket of his worn jeans.

" _Repairo,"_ He hissed, the sound a distant mutter as a faint glow came from the tip of the wand. The glass, which had stained dark blue, seemed to fly back in the air to reform the small bottle. There was no point in attempting to repair the staining, it had already soaked through. Professor Longbottom would have his head if he saw the state of his herbology books.

Suddenly, a shrill noise irritated his eardrums. It was a squeal, coming from the broom closet a mere three metres away. He shook it off, shoving his herbology book back into his tainted bag. It was probably just Karl Jenkins with another of his conquests. Disgust filled his mind as he thought of it. And he had seen the boy attempting to make Rose another notch on his belt on September first.

The sound was quickly muffled, and Scorpius halted in his tracks. He slowly made his way over to the closet. A whimper managed to escape from the crack on the bottom of the wooden door, making the hairs on the back of Scorpius' neck.

He flinched, and raised his hand to touch the knob. It was locked. He cursed for what seemed to be the millionth time that day, and twisted his wand so it pointed in the right direction. " _Alohomora,"_ he mumbled hastily.

The door made a clicking noise, and swung wide open.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: We do not own Harry Potter. All credit goes to J.K. Rowling.**

* * *

 **Chapter Six**

Rose flinched back, expecting another blow. Instead, she was met with a sudden flood of light. She let her eyes open and close as they adjusted to the illumination. She felt the floor creak under the footsteps of a hefty figure. She stared up at the closest. She had seen him around before, but didn't know his name.

He had near-transparent pale skin of which was covered in a bad acne problem. He was huge, so much so that he had to duck his head to fit inside the tiny broom closet. His arms short and stubby, rolls of grotesque body fat and muscle, and his stomach had trouble being concealed under his green school robes, which were worn and frayed at the ends. Beady mud-coloured eyes glared back down at her, willing her to cower under his stare.

"What the- Rose?!" a voice more familiar than she would have liked sounded out behind her, and mortifying realization stared her in the face.

She winced as she turned around to see Scorpius Malfoy's terrifyingly intriguing face. His stormy grey eyes peered down at her, disbelief emblazoned over his sharp features.

"Get out, Malfoy. Nobody wants you here," a gruff voice said, matching Rose's earlier examination of her captor's face. She forced herself to not turn, to block out the shame and terror she felt as of current.

"Well, I don't really want to know what you were planning to do, and I'm sure Rose doesn't either. Unless, of course, this was willing on her part," Scorpius said, tone sardonic and sarcastic.

She spluttered, desperately shaking her head at him, but trying to not capture the other boy's attention. "-I thought not. Now, Rose, how about we get to Charms. I hear we have a test this morning," he said, offering her a hand. She hesitantly took it, pulling herself up and away from the boy.

His face twisted into one of anger and disbelief.

"What?! You can't do that!" He bellowed, making a move to club Scorpius over the head.

"I think I am. And I think Rose would much rather get an Outstanding in her OWLS than do… I don't even want to think of what you were going to do to her."

With that, he slammed the door closed behind him, fist enclosed around Rose's wrist. They hurried off down the corridor.

"What happened Rose?" he asked quietly after a minute of awkward silence.

"I don't even… just, it's nothing of importance for you," she spluttered, hastily running a hand through her locks of disheveled hair, of which had come loose from her normal neat ponytail.

"What happened?" he urged, pausing in his tracks.

"None of your business, Malfoy. Just leave me alone; I have a class to get too!" She yelled, tone shrill and whispering with hysteria. She snatched her wrist away from his hand and stomped toward the Charms Classroom.

"Rose, you're being ridiculous!" he responded, grabbing her by the shoulder, forcing her to halt where she stood.

"How, Scorpius. I think that I am being perfectly reasonable. You are not accountable for my actions, so stop acting like it!" she spat bitterly.

"Yes I am, Rose! I am because I made the most horrible mistake anyone with a brain could possibly make."

She put her hands on her hips, face twisted in displeasure.

"Yeah? What did you do?" Rose said, arms folded over her chest in defiance.

Scorpius took a deep breath, ducking his head in a manner that Rose couldn't explain. He stood in that position for a moment, before inhaling once more and glancing back up.

"Isn't it obvious?" he scoffed, cheeks burnt a furious red. He appeared to be biting the inside of his cheek, and she felt an unnecessary wave of maternal-ness, if that was a word.

"Quite the contrary," she said, though the sarcasm didn't quite match the normal measures of the rebellious words, cracking halfway through.

He sighed, slowly placing one hand on her shoulder, the other on her cheek, of which burned under his hand. "What the hell are you doing?" she hissed, snatching away, though even as she did it, every muscle in her body wanted to object. He sighed again, but didn't let go of her hand. Instead, he kissed her.

Rose's eyes widened, and a strangled sound echoed from her mouth. Her lips were slack against his, stiff with shock. His lips tasted plump and soft as it slowly moved against hers, sending warm tingly electric waves down her spine. The delicate, tangy taste of apple in his breath intertwined with hers, leaving her panting as he reluctantly moved away.

"Sorry," he said breathlessly. "I shouldn't have do-" He was interrupted by the palm of her hand slapping harshly across the side of his cheek.

"What the hell was that for?" he snapped, hand hastily rubbing against his face, which now had a red hand print shadowing where he stood.

"You have to give a girl some notification. Really, Malfoy, I thought that you were better than this."

With that simple statement, she cupped her hand against his cheekbones, prominent as he swallowed nervously. She pulled him down by his emerald green school tie, of which nestled on his neck, astrew from earlier haste, till he was eye level with her. Before she could think again, she slammed her lips against his.


End file.
